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Ernie O'Malley was a revolutionary republican and writer. One of
the leading figures in the Irish independence and civil wars, he
survived wounds, imprisonment and hunger strike, before going to
the USA in 1928 to fundraise on de Valera's behalf. Broken
Landscapes tells of his subsequent journeys, through Europe and the
Americas, where O'Malley moved in wide social circles that included
Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Hart Crane and Jack B. Yeats. Back in
Mayo he took up farming. In 1935 he married Helen Hooker, an
American heiress, with whom he had three children, Cathal, Etain
and Cormac, before a bitter separation. His literary reputation was
established with a magnificent memoir, On Another Man's Wound
(1936). In later years he was close to John Ford, and worked on The
Quiet Man (1952). This vibrant new collection of letters, diaries
and fragments opens up the broad panorama of his life to readers.
It enriches the history of Ireland's troubled independence with
reflections on loss and reconciliation. It links the old world to
the new - O'Malley perched on the edge of the Atlantic, a folklore
collector, art critic and radio broadcaster; autodidact, modernist
and intellectual. It conducts a unique conversation with the past.
In Broken Landscapes, we travel with O'Malley through Italy, the
American Southwest, Mexico and points inbetween. In Taos, he
mingled wiht the artistic set around D. H. Lawrence. In Ireland, he
drank with Patrick Kavanagh, Liam O'Flaherty and Louis MacNiece.
The young painter Louis le Brocquy was his guest on his farm in
Burrishoole, Co. Mayo. These places and people remained with
O'Malley in his private writing, assembled for the first time from
family and institutional archives. Reading these letters, dairies
and fragments is to see Ireland in the tumultuous world of the
twentieth century, as if for the first time, allowing us to view
the intellectual foundations of the State through the eyes of its
leading chronicler.
County Kerry saw many of the most vicious episodes in both the War
of Independence and the Civil War. Many Republican survivors of
these events were reluctant to speak about their experiences, even
to their own family. However, they were willing to talk to Ernie
O'Malley, who was the senior surviving Republican military
commander from the period of those struggles. By transcribing
O'Malley's notebooks, where he recorded these interviews, Cormac
O'Malley and Tim Horgan have made available previously unpublished
first-hand accounts of Kerry's role in the fight for independence.
The interviews provide an unrivalled insight into this important
period of Irish history, including controversial incidents such as
the Ballyseedy massacre, the battle at Headford Junction and
executions by the Free State forces.
In the 1940s and 1950s Ernie O'Malley travelled around Ireland
interviewing survivors of Ireland's struggle for Independence.
These interviews, now being made available to the public for the
first, time give a fascinating insight into the times and the
people who fought. Many of those who were interviewed were
unwilling to talk - even to their own families - about their
experience, but because O'Malley was such a well-respected figure
they consented to be interviewed by him. This book includes
accounts of activities in many parts of Mayo and neighbouring parts
of Roscommon and Sligo and most of those interviewed also fought
against the Free State in the civil war. The key events described
took place in the early months of 1921 in places such as Kilmeena,
Tourmakeady and Carrowkennedy.
On Another Man's Wound, O'Malley's account of his experiences
during Ireland's War of Independence, was first published to
instant acclaim in 1936 and was followed by his account of his
experiences in the Civil War in The Singing Flame. O'Malley had
reported directly to Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy during the
War of Independence and was appointed OC of the Second Southern
Division, the second largest division of the IRA. When the Treaty
with Britain was signed on 6 December 1921, diehard Republicans
like O'Malley would not accept it. In the bitter Civil War that
followed, O'Malley was in the Four Courts when it was attacked by
the Free State army. Later he was OC of the Republicans in Ulster
and Leinster. He was eventually captured and imprisoned until July
1924. He was one of the last Republican prisoners to be released.
The Free Staters had won and O'Malley, feeling there was no place
for him in this new Ireland, went to live in the USA where he wrote
his memoirs.
`Nobody's Business': The Aran Diaries of Ernie O'Malley presents
new insights into the contradictions and complexities of the mind
of Ernie O'Malley, one of mid-twentieth century Ireland's foremost
cultural critics. In 1941, 1955 and 1956, the former revolutionary
leader and author of the acclaimed memoir of the War of
Independence, On Another Man's Wound, visited the Aran Islands.
While on the islands, O'Malley kept diaries recounting his daily
conversations and interactions with other visitors and islanders
including Elizabeth Rivers, with whom he stayed on one occasion,
Charles Lamb and Sean Keating. The diaries, devoid of sentiment and
often highly critical, reveal his views on art, literature, history
and contemporary Irish life and international affairs as well as
his thoughts on the economic, religious and daily life of the Aran
islanders. His unvarnished observations on the inconsistencies and
hypocrisies of life in post-Independence Ireland make his diaries
absorbing and provocative. Edited with introductory essays by
Cormac O'Malley and Roisin Kennedy and an afterword by Luke
Gibbons, `Nobody's Business': The Aran Diaries of Ernie O'Malley
offers fascinating insights into the mind and opinions of a key
figure in Irish cultural nationalism.
For the first time in published form 'The Men Will Talk to Me:
Galway Interviews' chronicles the experiences of the Galway-based
survivors of the War of Independence and the Civil War, recorded in
the hand-written notebooks of Ernie O'Malley. Many of the
individuals would not talk about their experiences, even to their
own families, but were willing to talk to Commandant General
O'Malley, the senior surviving Republican military commander, who
took on the task of preserving the memories of these participants.
The resulting O'Malley notebooks provide an unrivaled insight into
this important period of Irish history, including the attack on
Clifden and life 'on the run' for the Galway IRA volunteers.
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